Vance, Patel and Leavitt Use School Shooting to Reinforce Republican Talking Points

Of course they would lie and use the shooting to reinforce Republican talking points. Other countries have far lower rates of shootings though rates of mental illness and disturbance are relatively the same. The shooting was not terrorism or anti-Catholic. And Kash Patel is an idiot, an asshole and a Trump toadie who is participating in terrorism himself. But with Republicans it's partisanship politics and lies all the time. They didn't come to govern they came to destroy. 

Plato's Plutopia

I wonder if Plato foresaw the possibility of a government, one highly effective at destroying itself, stumbling into an inverted version of his ideal in an act of revolutionary reinvention. I'm not sure what Plato's ideal was but he probably thought of his republic as efficient in its specialization. Plato put appropriate people in appropriate hierarchical roles. 

With philosophers at the administrative top. Being rich didn't seem to be a qualification. For Republicans it's a qualification. The only qualification. In the way of evangelicals, it means you were chosen. One of the elect, voilà and de facto. You are the best and below that everyone is a lackey. A lowly being. There are God's chosen people with masses of serfs and enforcers below. 

Republicans have achieved efficient, organized and specialized destruction, but destruction is easy so let's not be too much in awe and understand an evolved and expansive machine devoted to plunder can still be stopped, by the right wrench in the right place at the right moment and before it's too late -- before they've decentralized like a franchise from hell. 

Like the terror organization they are. An Al Qaeda or Taliban. They're destroying the government on behalf of the Confederacy and rich fuckers. We need some of that infrastructure and capacity intact when we get it back. They know this and are working hard to fuck it up irreparably. We had better get our act together, while there's something left to save. 

I think it's still possible but not by much. 

The Last Big Thing

AI is the last big thing, the technology that heralds the end of humanity and civilization. I'm not sure it was even good while it lasted. We were always in Eden and always choosing the apple. Enough of us, anyway. For those that didn't it could be good. The stories that convey the urgency of salvation aren't temporal, nor are they about an afterlife. Heaven and hell are here and now, and we chose to take the miracle of life for granted, sought power, lost our humility and fucked it all up. 

Bring Me the Head of Abrego Garcia

Stephen Miller, a member of the Trump crime family, has mixed up Kilmar Abrego Garcia with the title character, Alfredo Garcia, in a Sam Peckinpah movie. THAT Garcia is a criminal, gang member and thug. Consider that Abrego Garcia is not, as far as we know, a gang member. Nor is he in the 'Epstein Files' or under suspicion of being in them which is a more serious matter so attention should be directed there and at the release of those in a complete, unredacted version to a bipartisan committee or other responsible and secure entity before anything else and after which relevant material might be published and further investigations and prosecutions undertaken.

The Death of Trump

Trump might die, and sooner rather than later according to some people who say his swollen ankles and other signs point to a man in serious health trouble. I think people can live a surprisingly long time in terrible shape. We should still address the unbridled joy and ecstasy that would attend the death of Donald. It might be like overfeeding a starving person and inadvertently killing them. 

Trump is such an unimaginably awful and destructive piece of shit the rebound effects from being freed from him might be more than people can handle. Can you imagine, never having to endure again the utterly vile stuff that pours out of him day and night? And the damage he does. My God, the damage. But then we would face the headless monster of MAGA. And JD Vance... 

Mundane Matters

When you associate with Jesus every day and are expecting the end times it's hard to focus on mundane things like the millions of people you're getting killed. You delegated that. And what does it matter when those poor souls are only getting to see Jesus before you (or not) so you're kind of doing them a favor. Evangelical Christians are distracted, blinded by the light of Jesus's presence. They have a known personal relationship with Jesus, of that they are certain. But they can never be sure about you. 

Trump Thugs Are Coming to Your Town

But, be reassured. Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize and, we have recently learned, to get into heaven. How bad can it be? 

Exit Stage Right

Wow, the Trump admin just got its clock cleaned in Alaska. Trump can't admit he got owned and made a fool. And there are those around him who can't either. How far into the privy council do we have to go to find someone who says fuck, this is ridiculous? And how far to get to someone who gives as shit? 

Miller and Vought are projectiles. Susie Wiles has to wipe the drool from Trump all the time. It's her job, she does it constantly and she knows Donnie has spit himself again but she's not there for anything else. A professional Civil Service is supposed to be there to look out for the country's broader interests. 

Trump fired them all because fuck the country. Trump is supposed to be there for the same reason but he can't comprehend it -- non compos on that count. Bessent is a class warrior. Who knows about him. He's there for the money and to preclude an uprising of the plebs. Ditto Lutnick and probably Witkoff.

I'm just asking. Because I don't see anybody in a position of influence and who isn't hopelessly compromised and conflicted and who gives a  a shit enough to try to do something. All the damage control mechanisms have failed. They have made a job of it. Our country has ceased to exist. 

It's Time to Get Out

Out of what? Out of where? I don't know, but's I think it's time to get out.  

Posse Kardashiensis

Posse Comitatus is a right of non-interference, initially a concession to southern states to impede the use of federal force against them wanting to establish an apartheid substate. I think it would have happened anyway, they were so determined, but now the South has risen up and taken over in Washington and they want to use federal force against state authority. 

Of course. But there's more to it. Everything is personal with Trump, so we have non-interference based on him, the rights of celebrity, to do whatever they want. Fucking period. Trump's erosion of norms is massively destructive to the rule of law, and he's being used by people who want that, but with Trump it's narcissistic individualism, pure infantile egotism. 

The Expurgated Epstein Files

Tell me how we're going to know the Epstein Files, if we ever see them, haven't been doctored to protect the guilty. Trump is never going to show us anything that's incriminating to him. 

Triumph of the Shills

We should have known that when America went fascist even its villains would be pathetic and losers among that class of losers. They would be fucking bureaucrat bourgeoisie fascists. 

This Is It, Folks

People picture themselves in a battle as though it's a competition and it's scripted and you're doing something that at least makes you feel like you have some agency when, in reality, most of those who get killed never knew what hit them. A fighter-plane 'dog-fight' comes to mind with the drama and a mano-a-mano scene and a victory on one side but evidently most of those who get shot down don't even see their attacker. 

They get jumped. In any case, the point I want to make is that Democrats are expecting a drama and a battle and certain script and they've gotten jumped. They have no idea what's going on. Republicans have overwhelmed them and they're in denial. The news out of the White House is that Trump isn't running anything. He's being stage-managed by Miller and Vought and a few others and it's worse than we can imagine. 

Trump is riding a wave and he's delusional and his handlers are having him do stuff no one in their right mind would do on the assumption they'd be remembered for it and he does it all. The man's a total fuckup and an imbecile. Everything is in slow motion as we experience it but it's a democratic kill-shot. It's a coup. A takeover. Conquest, and we're being ravaged and pillaged. Our institutions are being burned to the ground. 

Fatuous Libertarian Disease

I had an ongoing thing with an undergraduate philosophy professor about pragmatism. Dewian pragmatism. I couldn't tell if he believed in it but he had done his dissertation on Dewey so there we were. I thought the philosophy's main selling point was that it was hard to refute -- a good philosophy for a troll. The professor was a nice guy and I had no idea about Dewey, so, no aspersions. 

But I thought pragmatism was tautological so I smelled a rat. The way to make something irrefutable is not to say anything. Hence my feelings about libertarianism. I smell a scam. Freedom is good! Okay, have your lawyer draw up something and I'll sign it. I'll stipulate, freedom is good. And then I note that most of the 'libertarians' I know are from privilege and I have questions.

Whose freedom? Because I think they mean theirs, to the exclusion and diminishment of mine. And in my observations, let's say, of the self-styled libertarianism I find where I decide to look for it in the wild, in the policies and actions of the Trump administration, they mean their freedom, at the deliberate expense of mine. They're even compromising my freedom at no seeming benefit to themselves.

Unless you count disempowering me as a benefit, as they apparently do, and then meanness might come into it or an irrational, compulsive aggression driven by fear. Hence again and I come to originalism, Supreme Court version, another scam. I see it's irrefutable and able to be redefined and reinterpreted on the fly to suit their desires. And I observe they're doing whatever the fuck they want. 

Hence one last time and I come to people calling themselves 'Christians' and 'patriots' and I call bullshit. It's not like saying you're a Methodist or a citizen, they're putting themselves above us which is, I think, evidence against the thing they're asserting. Prideful, at least. That wraps up my investigation for now but stay tuned for more horrible right-wing crap. I'm sure we're not done with it.

The Corpse Flower of Conservatism

Conservatism occasionally blooms and the horrific stench attracts the carrion flies that are its pollinators. Flies like Stephen Miller, Russ Vought, JD Vance, Pam Bondi, Hegseth, Kash Patel and others are drawn irresistibly to the smell of shit. It's all to do with procreation, spreading the conservative disease.

There is No Redoubt

We're in the last battle. Will the Yankees or the Confederacy rule? 

Always, in the past, the South has had its redoubt. They lived in their slave states, trying to take over the country from there and making a few good runs, but it never worked and they returned to their plantations. Or, an apartheid substate after getting their asses plastered in the Civil War. 

But they never gave up. Now, after desegregation, there is no redoubt, no racist haven to which to return. So the country must be remade into a racist refuge, an evangelical theme park and a white safe space. We're going to be one country at last, it appears on the terms of the Confederacy.

Inbreds Out and About

In today's news Arkansas inbreds Tom Cotton and Mike Huckabee made their mark, Cotton by ordering up an investigation of Jack Smith and Huckabee by being the jackass he is on a Mideast trip and by carrying on being a shithead once he got back with the renewed attention his negative contribution to saving starving children had earned him.